Eggplant Salad

This eggplant salad recipe is a celebration of summer produce! It's bursting with fresh flavor from grilled eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs.

This eggplant salad recipe is what you should make after a trip to the farmers market in late summer. It features some of the best produce of the season: eggplant, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and lots of herbs. I love this recipe because it has a delicious blend of raw and cooked ingredients. I grill the eggplant and peppers so that they offer a tender, smoky contrast to the super-fresh tomatoes and herbs. A zingy lemon dressing ties the salad together, while tangy feta cheese and pickled onions take it over the top. Flavorful, refreshing, and bursting with seasonal veggies, this…

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Get Our Guide to Easy, Healthy Breakfasts!

Subscribe below to get Healthy Breakfasts Made Easy! In this 5-part email series, I share tips and recipes to help you make quick, nutritious breakfasts.

Healthy Breakfasts Made Easy is a 5-part email series. In it, I share tips, tricks, and recipes to help you make quick, healthy breakfasts…that are also delicious! Discover strategies for getting ahead on breakfast (and whipping it up at the last minute), plus get some of my best breakfast recipes sent straight to your inbox. Sign up here to get the guide: By signing up, you’ll receive the 5-part breakfast series as well as our Love & Lemons newsletter three times a week. Of course, you can unsubscribe at any time.

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Sweet Corn Pizza

Corn on pizza? Yes, please! The crisp, juicy kernels offer a delicious contrast to the hearty crust, creamy cheeses, and nutty basil pesto in this recipe.

Do you have an opinion about corn pizza? Love it? Hate it? Never tried it? I’m firmly in the “love it” camp, and I’m sharing my favorite corn pizza recipe in the hopes of winning more folks over. Of all the pizza toppings out there, sweet corn is seriously underrated. The reason it’s so good is its texture. The lightly crisp, juicy kernels offer a delicious contrast to creamy cheese and starchy crust. They add an unexpected sweetness to a pizza as well. This white corn pizza really shows these qualities off. I pair the corn with lemony ricotta, melty…

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Blackberry Crisp

This easy blackberry crisp recipe features juicy summer berries with a toasty oat and brown sugar topping. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

It’s blackberry season—let’s make blackberry crisp! Our kiddo loves fresh fruit, so I’ve been getting all kinds at the farmers market this summer. Peaches, cherries, blueberries… Every type has been delicious, but I’ve been especially impressed by the fresh blackberries. They’re soft, juicy, and sweet. In past summers, I’ve definitely under-appreciated this wonderful fruit! To spread the blackberry love, I’m sharing my easy blackberry crisp recipe. The fresh berries bake into a tart, jammy filling, which I top with an oat crumble that gets beautifully golden brown and toasty in the oven. This vegan and gluten-free dessert is wonderful on…

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25 Kitchen Essentials That Every Home Cook Needs

The right tools make cooking easy and efficient! Here are the must-have kitchen essentials, ranging from basic utensils to high-quality cookware.

In my opinion, every home cook needs certain kitchen essentials. These basics make cooking easier, more efficient, and—best of all—more enjoyable. With the right tools and equipment, you’ll have more flexibility in the kitchen. You can whip up a creamy pureed soup with a great blender, get a perfect sear in a cast-iron skillet, and make pancake batter or cookie dough with good measuring cups, mixing bowls, and a trusty silicone spatula. I’m sharing my complete list of these kitchen essentials below, plus recommendations of brands I use and love. I hope it helps you stock your kitchen with long-lasting,…

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50 Fresh Tomato Recipes

Show off your peak-season tomatoes in these fresh tomato recipes! We've got salads, soups, pasta, and more—you're bound to find something you love.

Fresh tomato recipes go on repeat in our house every summer. In the dead of winter, there’s nothing I crave more than a summer tomato—sweet, juicy, and ripe. The out-of-season supermarket ones can’t compare, so when summer rolls around, I only have a few months to make every tomato salad, sandwich, pasta, and pizza I’ve imagined throughout the year. When I made my grocery list this morning, I added cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, and tomatoes on the vine. We have lots of tomato recipes on tap this week. 🙂 I hope you’re also cooking with tomatoes like crazy right now, while…

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Salsa Roja

Spice up your favorite Mexican dishes with this salsa roja recipe...or just eat it with tortilla chips. With its smoky flavor, it's delicious any way you try it!

Are you team salsa roja or salsa verde? I’m team…both! I adore all types of salsa made with fresh ingredients, and this salsa roja recipe is one I’ve been especially loving lately. It differs from other red salsas I’ve previously shared in two ways: I roast the fresh ingredients. Charring the tomatoes, onion, and serrano peppers adds smoky depth of flavor to this salsa recipe. I use a dried chile. It thickens the salsa, adds rich complexity, and brings out the smoky flavor even more. If you try this salsa roja, you won’t believe it’s homemade. It tastes like you could have…

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Fattoush Salad

Fattoush is a Middle Eastern salad made with fresh veggies, herbs, and crispy pita bread. Tossed in a zesty sumac dressing, it's bright and delicious.

This fattoush salad recipe is the perfect side dish for a summer meal. A Middle Eastern staple, fattoush is fresh and bright, featuring seasonal vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, and lettuce, plus a hefty dose of parsley and mint. But, as tasty as tomatoes are in August, the star ingredient in fattoush isn’t a vegetable. It’s bread! That’s right—crispy pita bread adds crunch to this salad, making it pretty darn irresistible for just about anyone. (Salad skeptics, I’m looking at you.) I hope you try this recipe. I think you’ll love it! Fattoush Salad Recipe Ingredients Here’s what you’ll need…

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Lemon Blueberry Bread

This lemon blueberry bread is moist, tender, and bursting with juicy berries. Drizzle the loaf with a simple glaze for an extra pop of lemon flavor.

This lemon blueberry bread recipe is one of my favorite ways to use the blueberries we pick in Michigan every summer. These sweet, bursty berries are so tasty that we eat most of them plain, but I always try to save enough for a loaf of this delicious quick bread too. It’s moist, tender, and loaded with berries, and plenty of lemon zest gives it a pop of bright flavor. Enjoyed alongside a cup of coffee or tea, a slice of this lemon blueberry bread is the perfect light breakfast. For a sweeter treat, drizzle it with a simple lemon…

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Elote Recipe

Level up grilled corn on the cob with this easy elote recipe! Smothered with mayo, chile, cheese, and lime, it's creamy, tangy, smoky, and sweet.

When summer sweet corn comes hits peak season, this elote recipe goes on repeat in our house. I love corn on the cob in all its iterations, but something about elote is especially irresistible. This grilled Mexican street corn is creamy, tangy, sweet, and smoky. If you’ve never tried it—or never tried making it at home—now’s the time. Let’s make it! Elote Recipe Ingredients Here’s what you’ll need to make this elote recipe: Fresh sweet corn, of course! Use the freshest corn on the cob you can find. Mayonnaise – It creates a creamy coating for the corn and helps…

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Iced Matcha Latte

You don't have to go to Starbucks to get an iced matcha latte. Instead, make this recipe at home! This energizing drink is cool, creamy, and delicious.

Meet my go-to iced matcha latte recipe! I make this energizing drink just about every day from the start of summer to when the temps dip in the fall. It’s cool and creamy, with a slightly grassy, earthy flavor that I absolutely love. Matcha took off in popularity in the US a few years back, and these days, you can find an iced matcha latte on almost any coffee shop menu. I still order one out from time to time, but for the most part, I prefer to make my own iced matcha latte at home. Here’s why: I can…

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A food blog with fresh, zesty recipes.
Photograph of Jeanine Donofrio and Jack Mathews in their kitchen

Hello, we're Jeanine and Jack.

We love to eat, travel, cook, and eat some more! We create & photograph vegetarian recipes from our home in Chicago, while our shiba pups eat the kale stems that fall on the kitchen floor.